I Dream a Little Dream of You
by Tamoline
Summary: As Jean's power grows, her dreams grow with it. Soon, they are too powerful to be contained within just her head. What she needs is an anchor point, a constant. Even if it's not one she would expect. Even if it's not one she would want.


Night falls, and so does Jean Grey.

Her eyes drift closed, her mind sinking slowly, languorously down through the depths…

And the school unfurls around her.

Light and shadow, noise and silence. The clatter of footsteps long-stilled or never-made. Voices. (So many voices. Whispers and screams and everything in-between; everything all at once, all the time, just like the bad old days before… Before.) The smell of freshly varnished wood, the feel of it worn smooth under countless careless fingertips, the way the afternoon sunlight strikes a window at just the right angle to paint rainbows on the wall.

The sweet-acrid tang of dry-erase markers as it mingles with a sharp oily scent.

A boy sits hunched in on himself, his arms wrapped tightly around his body, the too-loud sound of his breathing harsh and ragged over the soft susurration of voices and laughter. He sinks into his seat as if he's trying to hide, but the harsh glare of the overhead lights illuminates his trembling form like a spotlight aimed right at him. The source of the voices lurks just outside the circle of light: a crowd of vaguely human forms, blurry and indistinct aside from the feral glint of teeth and eyes and nails as they shuffle and point. And laugh. The boy trembles; a full body shudder that makes his teeth rattle and the legs of his chair clatter on the shiny hardwood floor.

"No," he whispers, and the sweet smell of cooking meat suddenly fills the air, mingling with the smell of complex hydrocarbons to produce a cloying, sickening aroma. "No, no, *no*," as his skin starts to redden and smoke. "No, no, nononono." The words turn mushy and indistinct, fading into a gurgling moan as flames erupt from his flesh. Fat sizzles and drips, skin charring and peeling to reveal red, wet muscle that blackens and burns away to show internal organs bursting like rotten fruit. The greedy flames feast on the boy's flesh, consuming all of it to burn ever brighter. Somewhat improbably, the eyeballs are the last to go, rolling in the sockets like marbles before they, too, start to bubble and pop.

And still the figures laugh.

Jean flinches away and…

The rich scent of baking curling kindly through the air, heat from the oven mingling with the bright summer sunlight to wrap the whole scene in lazy warmth.

The room is bright, and light and airy. Colourful posters plaster the walls around a bed plump with pillows and sheets and worn but comfortable furniture takes up almost all the available floorspace, giving the place a cosy, lived-in feeling. Music drifts in through the open door; a woman's voice singing along to the radio. Cracked in places, and missing a few of the high notes here and there, the voice is nonetheless made of joy and comfort and love. This is a safe place. A happy place. Home.

Even if the details blur and change, posters changing shape and colour when they're not in focus, even as the window blurs between having curtains and having none, even as the taste of longing and loss is almost palpable upon the tongue.

Jean turns around and…

Sweat and musk and mingled breath.

Blurred figures on a bed; moving, straining, writhing against each other. Details drowned out by a sea of conflicting needs and sensations. Heat and touch and hesitation and desperation and desire, raw and inchoate and everything all at once and too much and more more *more*. Reaching, grasping, touching *wanting*…

"I'm sure this is a breach of ethics according to the school rulebook," Emma says from behind her. "Or if it isn't, it really should be."

Jean spins around, unable to prevent a snarl from spreading across her lips. "What are *you* doing here?"

Emma looks as poised as Jean feels unbalanced. "I think the better question is what are you doing here?" and Jean finds herself unable to answer.

Because…

Because…

Because Emma's right. She shouldn't be here, shouldn't be brushing the edges of her students' thoughts, even as they become diffuse as they sleep, radiating brightly in the way that only the confused mess of hormonal teens can. Not even as her own barriers soften in sleep as they must be, as she must be.

"Nothing to say?" Emma says, smirking. "I'm almost disappointed." She leans a little to one side. "Still, I can't help feeling that the fact that you summoned me in response to this particular dream to be… somewhat telling."

Jean flushes. "What do you mean, I summoned you? I've managed to achieve some bare tolerance for you when I'm awake. It's hardly like I'm going to want to see you when I'm asleep."

Emma looks at, amused. "Oh really?" she says, then is abruptly next to Jean, so close, close, close Jean can feel the puffs of air as she speaks, the scent of Emma's perfume overwhelming the musk of the dream. "Are you honestly under the impression that I'm actually real?" she murmurs before leaning forwards and…

Jean's eyes fly open and the welcome darkness of the room envelops her, hiding the flush of her cheeks and how very ashamed and embarrassed she's feeling. It takes precious moments for her breath to stabilise, time enough for the flurry of her thoughts to subside a little. She had thought that she was years past the point where other people's dreams would leak into hers, but ever since her powers surged…

She quells the flame of anger within herself. At herself. It wouldn't do her, or anyone, any good. And it certainly didn't explain Emma's presence within her wandering dreams. She checks her shields, her mind, but can't find any hint of that damned woman. It must have been just a dream then, maybe something from her own subconscious, maybe something from one of the fever bright dreams of her students.

It didn't mean a thing.

She almost stretches out, almost reaches for Scott in the bed next to her, but at the last minute doesn't. He's never felt more distant than he has lately, even when he's not been there at all and… And she doesn't want to burden him with anything else, give him another reason to retreat.

It didn't mean a thing, after all.

* * *

Still, at breakfast the next morning, when Emma looks over at her and gives her a smirk, that same damned smirk, she has to resist the urge to flex her telekinetic muscles, and pull her apart like a fly.

"Good morning," she says instead.

"Good morning," Emma almost purrs, not to her but looking at Scott instead, and for some reason that's the thing that cuts the most. She reminds herself again that it wouldn't be appropriate to kill another member of staff in front of the students - no matter how much she might have it coming - and sits down next to Kitty, at the opposite end of the table to Emma.

"Restless night?" Kitty asks with a sympathetic smile.

Jean compresses her mouth and steadfastly does *not* look in Emma's direction, who is apparently laughing in response to something Henry said. "Something like that," she says. In the cold light of day, she can't bring herself to tell anyone, *anyone*, how much her control has been slipping.

Thankfully, Kitty leaves it at that, moving onto to something innocuous. Opposite her, Scott is even quieter than usual before his first coffee, his attention seemingly elsewhere in the room.

* * *

"I must say this is a lot healthier," Emma says to her that night, the bright sunlight streaming down around them.

They're in a garden, a melange of the mansion grounds, her parents' house and a park Scott had taken her to when they had just started dating. A mixture of peace, nostalgia and better times. And, to be short, nothing whatsoever to do with Emma.

It's her own dream, at least, but still. She can't help feeling angry, defensive, exposed that Emma of all people is here with her.

"What are you doing here?" she snaps.

"Always the same question," Emma sighs. "Do try to be a little more original next time."

"What do you mean next time?"

Emma just smirks. "Why are you asking me? This is your mind."

"And you're what? My apparent need to irritate myself even when I'm asleep?"

Emma sips wine from a glass she didn't have a second ago. "Something like that. I'm sure even you can figure it out. Given enough time."

In a fit of pique, Jean grasps around behind her and throws a branch at Emma.

"Very mature," Emma says, shielding her glass as the branch disintegrates midair into petals that rain down around her.

"Go. A. Way!" Jean says, extending her telepathy to *push* at the annoying intruder. It's little like stepping into a hall of mirrors - a kaleidoscope of refracted images - and the contact shocks her awake. She glowers into the darkness before rolling over, away from Scott, and closing her eyes again.

* * *

Jean notices when Emma enters her office, but, pettily, refuses to look up from her paperwork. The chair the other side of the desk creaks, but Emma actually waits a few minutes before breaking.

"Was there a reason you summoned me here, Jean? Or are you just planning on wasting my time?"

Jean finally looks up and smiles chillily. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe that you were assigned to teach Mutant Affairs or History at this facility."

Emma stiffens. "My students deserve to know the world that's waiting for them before it has a chance to kill them." She seems brittle under her hard exterior and something within Jean can't help pressing.

"Given recent history, your bias is understandable…"

"Recent history!" Emma interrupts disbelievingly. "Is *that* what you're calling it?"

Even through her dislike, Jean feels a stab of sympathy and looks down, breaking eye contact. "I'm sorry." She looks back up at the woman opposite. "But we have to emphasise the other side of the coin, teach them how to co-exist with normal humans, not fear them."

Emma rolls her eyes. "And you really think that's going to work?"

"I think that's the official position of this faculty, and I'd ask you not to undermine that."

"Fine," Emma said, pushing herself to her feet. "If there's nothing else?"

Jean dismisses her with a wave and gets back to her work, refusing to watch the woman leave.

* * *

Jean's always found the sensation of having her hair combed relaxing. The firm pull on her hair, the slight vibration as it's ordered, just the presence of having someone pressing up behind her who she trusts…

It just has a way of sending her into a gentle warm haze, where she doesn't feel the need to do anything more strenuous than tracking particles of dust drifting in the air. It was something her mother used to do for her.

Which is pretty much the only excuse she can give for how long it takes for her to realise *who* is combing her hair. It's the scent that gives it away, a familiar perfume that nags at her until she identifies it.

And all of a sudden she isn't feeling warm *or* relaxed any more. She pulls away and spins around.

"You!" she says.

Emma smirks. "Me," she agrees.

"What are…" she blinks, then dismisses the question. "*Why* were you combing my hair?"

"You really need to unwind, Jean," she says. "When was the last time you did that, even in your sleep?"

Jean glares at her. "Who are you to ask me that?"

"Who indeed?"

"Why are you doing this to me?" Jean whispers.

Emma just smiles.

* * *

The first sign of trouble is when Jean spots a small group of students getting into a minibus. She almost just shrugs because if it's a minibus, it's surely something arranged by a teacher and even if she can't remember what this is right now, she's surely been told about it and has just forgotten. With everything that's happening around here, she really shouldn't be surprised that things are slipping her mind.

The second sign is, of course, when she spots Emma walking over to the minibus and suddenly the only thing she can think is that of *course* Emma is involved in this and no *wonder* she can't remember anything about whatever this is. Emma with her sly disregard for the rules of the school in general and for Jean's authority in particular. Before she realises it, she's marching over to Emma.

"What do you think you're doing?" she demands icily.

"I would have thought that it was perfectly clear what I was doing," Emma drawls.

Jean's temper flares as does her telepathy, washing past the boundaries Jean usually sets, breaking on the edges of Emma's mind, smooth and hard and faceted as the diamond she can become.

Emma stands completely unfazed before her. "Really, Jean, is that any example to set for the students?" she asks and there's an answering titter from the students seated in the bus.

Jean flushes but forces the reaction down. "You do realise that you can't take students off campus without clearing it first?"

"Oh, but I did clear it," Emma practically coos, her eyes shifting to focus somewhere over Jean's shoulder and behind her. "Isn't that right, Scott?"

Jean turns around to stare at her husband, who's looking like he'd rather be anywhere else than here right about now. "A chance to get a guided tour around a Stark Industries subsidiary came up the last moment," he says, rubbing one hand against the back of his head. "It seemed like a great opportunity for the business studies class. I didn't think you'd have a problem with it."

He's right, in a way. She shouldn't mind. If it was anyone else - anyone she trusts more - than Emma, she probably wouldn't.

There's still a part of her - a large part - that wants to say no anyway. What makes it worse is that she can't help feeling that not so long ago Scott would have found time to tell her about this anyway. Maybe even invited her along. She wouldn't have accepted - this isn't really her cup of tea - but he'd have asked anyway.

This isn't about her and her wounded pride, though. This is about opportunities for the children, and Emma - damn her - is right. This is a good one. So she forces that part of herself down and nods to Scott. "Good idea," she tells him.

Emma, of course, helps things not one bit by smiling like she's the cat who got the cream. Jean goes inside rather than staying to watch them leave.

* * *

She's gotten so used to Emma in her dreams, has grown to trust her so much, that it takes her a few moments to question exactly why Emma is on top of her, straddling her, pinning her wrists with an almost surprising strength.

She just about manages to stop herself asking Emma what she's doing, but Emma must read it in her eyes anyway. "If you don't know what this is, it's *definitely* been too long, darling," she whispers and lowers her mouth down to Jean's.

Get off me, she tries to say, but instead she finds herself pushing back, seeking to push her tongue into Emma's mouth.

"Uh uh uh…" Emma chides, pulling her mouth away, leaving Jean bereft, before moving down again, nibbling at Jean's neck, all the time pinning her wrists down with those strong, strong hands. More, she can feel Emma pushing her way inside her telepathically, filling her up with a touch like that of cold glass.

The phoenix with ignites in response - not angry flames, but something else, something close and yet different - but somehow Emma withstands her, holds her, contains her as the fires within grow ever brighter.

And burst.

And burst.

And burst.

The last thing Jean sees is Emma's smile, and then she's awake. In the darkness, in the chill of the pre-dawn hours, in bed with Scott. For a few moments, she just lets her breathing calm down after the passion of whatever that was and waits for the guilt of cheating, even if only in a dream, to hit her.

It doesn't, and she's not sure why.

In the end, she convinces herself that she doesn't feel guilty because she doesn't need to feel guilty, because it wasn't real, wasn't anything conscious. And it's still a lot better than accidentally walking through the dreams of half the school, especially now the Professor is back.

She doesn't say anything about it to Scott the next morning, even if she can remember a time when she wouldn't have dreamed about not telling him.

But when do they ever really talk any more?

* * *

There's a tentative knock at Jean's office door.

"Come in," she calls out. The door opens, and she smiles at the clearly nervous-looking boy standing on the threshold. "Good afternoon, Theo."

"Good afternoon, Ma'am. I was wondering… Um, that is: can I talk to you?" he says, looking everywhere but at her. "I, uh, know I don't have an appointment, but…"

"Of course. Come in and have a seat. And please, call me Jean." He nods, flushing a little as he closes the door behind him and perches on the edge of one of the chairs. She waits for a moment or two, but when he doesn't speak, she gently prompts him with: "What's on your mind?"

He swallows audibly and glances down towards his hands. "Um, well, you see…" Jean barely has to be psychic to feel the waves of embarrassment and nervousness break over her like tsunami.

*Oh, be nice to him, Jean,* Emma chides her. She's leaning against the wall, somewhere she definitely wasn't a moment ago, offering Jean an almost friendly smirk in spite of her words.

*What are you doing here?* she hisses telepathically. Invading her dreams is one thing, but haunting her waking world as well?

*Helping you, apparently,* she says. Obviously, her tone implies. *Surely you have some idea of what this is about, from your illicit wandering through his dreams.*

A flash of fire, flesh melting from his bones, the laughter of children.

Jean puts aside her questions about what exactly is happening here, and concentrates on the important thing: Theo. He has the ability to transmute air to some phlogiston-like substance and then manipulate it, she remembers.

"Are you having problems with your powers?" she asks gently.

He nods thankfully.

"You've come to the right person if you want to talk about that," she says, trying to interject a little humour, but he doesn't smile. "Let's go to the danger room, and see if we can't go through some exercises that might give you some more confidence," she says, trying a different approach. He nods again, still a little hesitant. "No one is going to laugh at you," she adds and finally he relaxes.

*Who knew, apparently unethical actions can occasionally bear fruit,* Emma editorialises as Jean leads Theo out of her office.

*Who would have thought that would be the moral you would come up with,* Jean can't help saying in a weary mental voice.

*Look on the bright side, Jean. At least this wasn't regarding one of the sexual dreams.*

Jean winces. *Thank you for that.*

*Oh, it's no problem. No problem at all,* Emma says, giving her a final smirk before disappearing.

* * *

Jean's hand hovers over the handle to Professor X's room. Some kind of ill advised infatuation with an idealisation of Emma Frost, one where she is a friend instead of a colleague at best, is one thing - even when it leads to embarrassing dreams. She can handle that, even if perhaps she hasn't been as active about that as she could be.

Actually getting hallucinations about her whilst waking are something else entirely. She needs to talk to someone, and who better than her old mentor?

*Ah, Jean. What can I do for you?* the Professor's voice asks inside her head.

And Jean… hesitates.

*Still having problems with fluctuations in your powers?* he presses.

And the truth is… that she hasn't. Ever since Emma started appearing regularly in her dreams, it's hardly been a problem at all. She's not quite sure what to make of that.

But she's no longer certain that she wants to talk to Professor X about Emma at the moment.

*No,* she replies. *I had a talk with Theo this morning. He's worried about losing control of his powers. I think I managed to help him with his fears, but I thought you'd want to know, just in case.*

*I can't imagine anyone better suited to helping him than you, Jean. Was there anything else?*

*No,* she decides. *That was all.*

* * *

It isn't as though meal times have become some kind of demilitarised zone - for that matter, it isn't as though it's ever been the case that everyone has been the best of friends with everyone else. But even now, even well past the time they were of high school age, cliques form.

Some days they're just a little more obvious than others.

Jean doesn't have any particularly good reason to avoid Emma today. Maybe it was the dream last night. She's not quite sure why the two of them lounging next to each other on a sofa, sipping wine and talking about nothing in particular would leave her feeling if anything more ill at ease than one of what has become a series of disturbingly sexual dreams, but it has.

Maybe it's the sense of utter safety she has with Emma in her dreams. A sense conspicuously absent in their dealings in the waking world.

In any case, she's decided to spend dinner next to Kitty rather than Scott. Kitty, at least, is an Emma-free zone. Although apparently today that doesn't extend to *mention* of Emma.

"Look at her, playing court," Kitty says a little waspishly, nodding to where the miscreant in question has somehow managed to gather Henry, Logan and Scott, a feat Jean has rarely managed with any degree of amicability. Emma says something and Henry laughs, Logan grins and even Scott smiles. "I can't believe that she's managed to get them all hanging off her words."

*I am rather charming, aren't I?* her Emma says, appearing in the seat opposite her, not in the cool and bitchy tones of real-Emma, but the warm and mocking voice from her dreams.

Jean's mind blanks for a second, as her Emma takes the opportunity to run her foot up the back of Jean's calf, before she realises that Kitty's looking at her, waiting for her to say something.

"Has she done something particularly irritating today?" Jean manages to ask.

"'Well, maybe if this institution had given you a *proper* education, you'd have understood my allusion,'" Kitty says in a voice that's clearly meant to be a mock-imitation of Emma's. "'Personally, I mean to rectify that.' I can't believe that Henry, of all people, finds her faux-intellectualism charming."

*If it wasn't Kitty saying that, I might find the faux part of that accusation insulting.*

*Hush,* Jean thinks, trying to quell her inappropriate amusement at her Emma's words. *I like Kitty, unlike you.*

"They do share similar interests," Jean says mildly and Kitty gives her a sour look. "What's really bugging you?"

Kitty looks down at her food. "It just gets wearing. She's been here months and I just keep on waiting for her to make her move."

With a shock, Jean realises that it has been months. Months since the dreams started, months as she's gotten to know the Emma inside her head, regardless of how little she resembles the Emma of the real world.

"Sometimes it seems like I'm the only one," Kitty continues, a little morosely. "The professor can go on about forgiveness all he likes, but that doesn't mean we should forget what she's done and sometimes it feels like everyone else has."

Across the way, real-Emma meets her gaze briefly, and the difference between the cool mockery in her eyes with the guarded affection in her Emma's eyes is almost painful in its dissonance

"I haven't forgotten," she says and Kitty smiles at her gratefully.

I haven't forgotten at all.

* * *

When the Cuckoos tell her about Emma's affair with Scott, for a second she blanks, unable to comprehend it.

When her anger flares, it's all at Emma. How dare she do this to her?

When she storms into Emma's mind, Scott might as well not exist, for all the attention she pays him.

As she rampages through Emma's memories, burning through any barrier she tries to erect like tissue paper, she can't help thinking that the worst part of this is how *familiar* Emma feels, as though she's almost the person that Jean knows, but not quite. There's no affection there for Jean, no trace of the months they've spent together within dreams and without.

They're almost strangers, for all the emotion that Emma has for her.

And then she finds the love Emma has for Scott and she feels like the air has been kicked out of her stomach. Jean had thought that she could handle anything, but this…

This.

She somehow manages to leave the room without staggering. She's not quite sure how. She gets to her office and sits, staring at the wall blankly.

*I'm sorry,* Emma says.

Jean twists around so she see her, sprawled out on the sofa. One corner of her mouth is quirked in a smile, and suddenly Jean can't take it any more.

*What are you?* she yells psychically, because she'd thought, because she'd thought, because she's no longer sure what she'd thought, only that there's no way that her mind came up with something that feels that close to Emma without…

She's just not sure what she thinks anymore.

*What are you?* she repeats, whispering this time.

Emma looks her in the eyes, and Jean realises that she's crying. *Maybe I'm a shard of Emma's mind, knocked loose during the psychic shock of Genosha,* she says and shrugs. *Maybe I'm Emma's subconscious, something so repressed that even she doesn't know I exist. Maybe I'm a psychic reflection, an impression formed in your power by Emma, somehow, and become sentient. I don't know. All I do know is that I do have feelings for you. For whatever that's worth.*

It's so blunt, so… un-Emma that Jean can only stare at her for a moment. But she can feel her sincerity, as much of it as Emma's able to express and it further twists the ugly mess inside her.

*I'm not sure,* she says, turning away, unable to look back at Emma in the eyes. *I'm sorry. I don't know how much that is worth at all.*

When she looks back, Emma is gone.

* * *

It doesn't matter, in the end. After a night of restless, Emma-less, sleep, she wakes to find that Emma has been murdered, her body shattered.

And no matter how much she calls, she can't find any trace of her Emma within her.

* * *

As she places the last piece of Emma - her lips - within the shattered remains of her body, and calls upon the Pheonix to work her signature magic, to fuse Emma back together and bring her back from her own ashes, Jean can't help making a wish.

Doubled vision, Emma and Emma; the taut frozen moment when she doesn't know which one of them is (hers) real. Is this what going mad feels like?

Molecules fuse and bond.

Clothes melting with but a thought, leaving sweat-slicked skin bare to her touch. Emma laughs, somehow sounding cool and amused despite the way she's moving against Jean, with Jean. "Darling, that's cheating."

Order arises out of chaos.

Emma's fingers carding slowly through her hair, easing the worst of the tangles before she starts with the hairbrush. Their eyes meet in the mirror, and Emma smiles. Jean finds herself smiling back.

Emma's body reforms. Not so slack as to imply death, but as though she were merely sleeping, just waiting to open her eyes and start a new day full of possibilities.

And Jean sits back to wait and find out which Emma will wake.


End file.
